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> A small scale Uber or Lyft is just a cab company with an automated dispatch agent. It should be valued like a cab company, not a tech company. IMO the lines
by ericmay 4y ago
> A small scale Uber or Lyft is just a cab company with an automated dispatch agent. It should be valued like a cab company, not a tech company.
IMO the lines are a little fuzzy and the definition of "tech company" seems to be shifting pretty often to fit a specific narrative.
Like why is Netflix considered a tech company instead of a media company (like Disney or whoever owns Discovery +, AMC, or similar) when all they're doing is producing video content on a streaming service but Uber has to be valued as a taxi company when they produce an app that coordinates movement of people, products, and other things?
I guess part of the problem is everything is "tech" so the term is starting to lose meaning except when we want to No True Scotsman something (not that I'm accusing you of doing that here).
- prepend 4y agoBecause when streaming started the tech was new. So the differentiator was the technology. Now they’ll morph into just a media company. It’s funny that CBS and stuff was a tech company 100 years ago. Similar is the morph of Google into just a clear channel or other ad company. Search and adtech was hard years ago so they were a tech company. Now they sell ads and data.
- wpietri 4y agoI think the issue is that "tech" is a shifting label that requires novelty. My great-grandfather came over from France to work as an "engineer" in the mines of Minnesota. I suspect that for him as for me, the novel technology created an opportunity for quick-on-the-uptake people to make a decent living figuring out the new thing and making it go. But eventually the technology becomes settled and boring, so it's a different thing both in terms of skill and economically. If you're interested, you might look at Wardley mapping, one axis of which involves technology moving along this axis: Genesis -> Custom Built -> Product -> Utility/Commodity. Also relevant is the technology adoption lifecycle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle
- com2kid 4y ago> Like why is Netflix considered a tech company instead of a media company Before they started making their own content, Netflix was a pure tech company. They pioneered a lot of the streaming technology we now take for granted, and they were the first to solve some very difficult challenges. Recently the market re-priced Netflix stock to be more like a media company, so reality has caught up.
- ac29 4y agoBefore they started making their own content, weren't they mostly a logistics company? They were in the business of renting DVDs by mail.